16
Jul 1962:AOC in C, Near East Air Force/Commander British Forces - Cyprus

16
Jul 1962:The Administrator, Sovereign Base Areas - Cyprus

A
New Zealander, he joined the RAFO whilst at Cambridge, being awarded a permanent
commission in the RAF on completion of his degree.In 1935, he was sent to the USA to study instructional methods used by
the American services.

In late 1939, he was a member of a mission sent to Italy to investigate the
purchase of Italian aircraft for the RAF.

As
AOC, No 205 Group, the task fell to himof supervising the move of the RAF from Egypt to it's new bases in Cyprus
and remained in Egypt whilst the AOC in C established the new HQ in Cyprus,
eventually moving to the new HQ himself in October 1955.However, his tour in the Mediterranean ended in 1956 and he returned to
the Britain to command the RAF Staff College.1956 saw the gradual increase in tension between Britain. France and
Egypt following the latter's nationalization of the Suez Canal.When this tension escalated to the point of armed conflict, he found
himself appointed to command of the air task force to be involved in the Suez
campaign, Operation Musketeer.His immediate staff was selected from officers then attending the
Imperial Defence College where much of the early planning for this operation
took place.His selection and the appointment of a planning staff divorced from the
existing Middle East command structure whilst not a popular move with the
resident Middle Eastern commanders (ACM Sir Hubert Patch and AVM W J Crisham)
was logical in thatDenis Barnett had more recent experience of operations and the situation
in Egypt than any other serving Air Officer.The air task force was allocated he role of bombing the Egyptian
airfields in order to achieve the required air superiority.He ordered operations to commence at 16:15 hours on 31 Oct 1956 and by 2
November he considered the Egyptian Air Force to have been eliminated as an
effective fighting force, a view which was later confirmed by the Bomber Command
Operational Research Branch.

From
1965 he was the Member for Weapons Research and Development on the Atomic Energy
Authority, a post he held until 1972.